In order to satisfy the needs of basic research as well as industry, there is currently great interest in coherent, ultrashort-pulse-duration and high-power light sources. In basic research, large (kilometer) x-ray synchrotrons have met some of these needs, but they are extremely expensive, costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Thus, there is a need for an affordable and compact source, having a small enough footprint to fit in a university or industrial research laboratory or factory setting. Additionally, light with shorter pulse durations than are currently produced by synchrotrons are required in order to provide ultrafast time-resolution of transient physical or chemical processes. Perhaps the most important applications of advanced x-ray sources are EUV lithography and protein structural analysis.
In the former case, in order for computer chips to continue their exponential increase in speed for a given size, the next generation of lithography will require features resolution of less than 50 nm, which in turn will require a bright source of light with a wavelength of 13.6 nm. However, current sources at this wavelength are not powerful enough to meet the computer manufacturing industry's requirements.
In the case of protein structural analysis, the primary motivation is to be able to map by use of x-ray diffraction the large number of proteins (over one million) as has been done for genes (30,000) in the past. Obtaining this information is important because proteins direct most biological functions. Because of the size of the molecules involved, there is a great need to be able to resolve even smaller features than in lithography, 1 nm or less.